Method:I used evaporated milk again. With this batch I froze the water too ahead of time (remember to use distilled water). After I measured out my milk and water and lye I put my milk in an bucket and filled it with ice. Then I dumped the all the lye right into the mixture (I wanted to test this and see how it reacted as I’ve read of people adding lye this way). The mixture very quickly got that distinct ammonia smell and had the bright orange burnt look. I also had a really really really hard time getting all the lye to eventually dissolve. You’ll see in the picture below I still have some dark spots which I think might have been lye, but I’m not sure. The zap test comes back neutral…so I think the soap is okay. I should mention that even though I added the lye all at once, my temps still didn’t go above 80 degrees in the ice bath.

Mixing:
Once the lye was all mixed in with the milk I added it to the oils and stick blended it. I stick blended for a fair amount of time and only ever reached a light trace again, so I’m figuring that this is just a property of using goat’s milk.

I used a blend of essential oils this time. Cinnamon (the predominant EO), Clove Bud, Lemon, and Orange x10. The orange EO is super dark…so when I added it to the already dark orange mixture it got even darker.

I poured this batch into my 5lb mold and insulated it making it go through an intense gel phase. Not sure if the heat affected the milk.

You can see how much darker the soap is getting here in the gel phase. It ended up a orange-red color.

Unmolding:
Completely unlike my first batch this batch was super hard after less than 24 hours. I cut it by hand. Wasn’t even going to TRY and use my wire cutter on this it was that firm. It wasn’t brittle though. It too has a soft feel to it, but not as soft as the first batch. I think in part some of that might be the difference between the recipes. Though I do wonder if some of silkiness difference is caused by the gel phase.

I also wonder now if the next batch will be hard or soft. I’m going to use the same recipe I used for the first batch (with the correct amount of water this time) and see how it sets up. I’m probably not going to let it go through an intense gel phase. I won’t refrigerate this batch but I won’t insulate it either.

One thing I know I won’t do from now on is add the lye all at once. I don’t like the burnt orange it got. I will add it slowly and take the creamy orange from now on. I think that is the better way…and I was able to get the lye to all dissolve doing it that way.

Yeah I experimented with it that way as well. I pretty much tried 5 different techniques from all the different advice I’d gotten and read to see what I liked best for the future when I make milk soap!

All of my goat’s milk is completely frozen solid when I dump all the lye in. I make pretty large batches, so this might affect the outcome as well. Sometimes I can’t get the lye solution to get above 80 degrees no matter how long I let it sit. I’ve already read the experiment #3 post, and it looks like a lovely goat’s milk soap, so I’m curious to hear how #4 went!

Insulating your soap helps it heat up more and stay hotter longer which puts it through a “gel phase”. Some people like to gel their soaps some don’t. It’s up to you. Milk soap typically heats up on its own because of the sugars so they don’t need to be insulated.